Welcome to the Maelstrom

A Rant About Dogs and their Owners

2015-07-21T20:30:00.002-05:00

Walking my dog today and I see a guy with three angry barking little dogs on extendable leashes coming my way. 2 Shih Tzus and a Pekingese it looked like. Being a wary dog walker, I elect to cross over to the other side of the street at the intersection and continue on my merry way.

Well the Pekingese was having none of it, barking and growling, he darted into the middle of the street coming after me and my dog (who looked but pretty much ignored him), and then the retractable leash broke. The dog comes barreling at us, and his owner and the 2 yapping shihtzus after him.

At first I just stopped, thinking the dog would just bark and sniff Duke and the guy could catch him and be off. But the dog doesn't do that, instead he growls and darts in and basically attacks my dog, completely unprovoked. My 50# dog yips, jumps aside, and then the hackles went up and he started growling, not his usual play growl, but a "back off or I will be forced to hurt you" growl. The Pekingese is now darting around in circles, growling at Duke, while I'm clutching his collar trying to keep my dog from killing the little **** and also dancing around trying to keep myself between them (and seeing if I can aim a good swift kick at the attacker). Meanwhile the owner is standing off yelling at his dog to come (it doens't) or to sit (my dog does a couple of times, his doesn't). His other two dogs are busy yapping their little heads off but thankfully don't get involved. Finally (read, 30 seconds later, but felt like forever), he manages to grab his dog and I practically bolt down the sidewalk with mine. An apology? A shamed face? Nope, nothing, the guy just walked away.

Halfway down the block I see a woman with a lab mix wagging its tail at us. She witnessed the altercation, and hurriedly crossed the street as we came down it. I wanted to shout at her, "it wasn't my dog's fault, that little ****forbrains attacked him!"

We made it home without further incident and as far as I can tell the other dog never drew blood.

Teach your dogs manners people, or next time the GSD your Pekingese picks on will rip his yappy little head off, or his angry mom will.

Life in Chicago

2015-06-21T21:24:00.001-05:00

Well I've been in Chicago now doing a summer lab animal fellowship at the University of Illinois at Chicago for about 4 weeks. I have Duke and Addy here with me (pros and cons to that) and have been spending some time with Jackie (as much as possible).

The traffic here totally sucks. I have a 9 mile drive to work and it takes me 30 minutes in the morning if I leave around 7am and about an hour going home leaving at like 4:30pm. Luckily I've been listening to audiobooks (Song of Ice & Fire #2) which is probably all that's keeping me sane.

Last weekend I went and saw Jurassic World solo (pretty fun movie) and took a long day of bike riding up and down lakeshore drive with Jackie - including a brief stop at the Lincoln Park Zoo.

This weekend, Nathan came down. Friday night we got Chinese food, took Duke for a walk, and watched the last 4 episodes of season 5 of Game of Thrones.

Saturday we took Duke to the Montrose Dog Beach - with a stop at Slims for some Chicago hot dogs and frozen yogurt on the way. Pretty tasty and reasonably priced. Dog beach was crowded but very fun - Duke had a blast, zooming all around. Came home, dropped off Duke, and then walked the 2 miles to Davis Theater to see Inside Out. Huge line outside so I sneakily bought tickets on my phone and we walked past the line and straight in. Cute movie, interesting concept, but we both thought they could have done more with it. Long walk home and it started raining/storming on the way. We barely made it back right as the thunder and lightning started. Luckily I had my umbrella, though Nathan refused to use it until the very end. We ordered some deep dish Chicago pizza for dinner and watched The Heat and Little Shop of Horrors before calling it a night.

Sunday (today) we got a late start to the morning, ate some leftover pizza for lunch, and then walked about a mile to the train station. We took a couple of trains to the Roosevelt station and then walked about 15 minutes to the Shedd Aquarium, Jackie's friend hooked us up with free tickets that got us in everywhere. So we saw everything, including the dolphin/beluga/penguin/dog show. Spent a long time there, then headed back on the train to home. Fed the animals, Nathan packed up, then had leftover Chinese food before driving back to the train station and taking that up to O'Hare to drop Nathan off. I went with to say goodbye. Then the lonely ride and drive home.

Overall, I love my fellowship here, the people are very nice and the program sounds amazing, but I worry about living in Chicago. I'm not Jackie - she thrives on the nightlife and seems to make friends easily. I've mostly felt like I'm wasting so much time commuting, plus being lonely, it's making me question Chicago or really any big city as a potential future home.

I guess we'll just have to see how the next 7 weeks go.

Oh happy days :)

2015-03-05T13:34:00.001-06:00

Yes I am in the middle of the hell weeks I formerly mentioned, and yet I keep having good fortune and happy things happening to me :)

My happy things:
1. I was offered another summer internship interview, this time at Cornell
2. I was awarded another scholarship, this time specifically for lab animal medicine
3. My group got 39/40 on our 2nd homework assignment (this is especially awesome because we received a D on our first assignment)
4. Nathan is taking me to see Beauty and the Beast next Thursday at the Orpheum :)
5. I was offered the internship position at the U of I - Chicago :D !!!!

Yep. Happy times.

In other news, I've also started another weight-loss journey. The stresses of vet school and certain things happening in my life lead to a ridiculous cycle of me eating anything and everything that sounded moderately tasty with zero regard for portion control. I recognized this pretty quick but decided I didn't care.

Then I stepped on a scale, saw the number, and decided I'd be okay so long as I didn't get back up to X (the number I weighed before starting Weight Watchers back in the day).

Then mid-February hit and I had been avoiding the scale but decided to jump on to see where I was at... and the number was X+1. As soon as I saw that I noticed that yeah, my pants weren't fitting super well and yeah, I was getting more tired and lazy with exercising Duke (a lot more fetch, a lot less walks - which I had been blaming on the cold weather).

So then I realized I should actually do something about it, but I decided I was going to be more realistic about things and take it slow. So I gave myself February. I literally made the conscious decision that I could keep eating whatever I wanted whenever I wanted up through February 28. But come March 1, that was it. I was on a diet.

So March 1st came and it was a Sunday that I had to work. I drive by a Culvers on my way to/from work and the Flavor of the Day was Cookie Dough Overload and I thought to myself, well what's one more day? Thought about stopping on my way back all through my shift, it was the thought of that delicious frozen custard full of delightful cookie dough that kept the smile on my face while dealing with rude and ignorant clients. And then I got in my car to drive home (with my pit stop) and realized what I was doing.

I didn't go to Culver's, I went home and ate scrambled eggs instead.

That was a pretty proud moment for me and my motivation. Since then I've been counting calories every day and keeping within my range of desired intake.

I realize it's only been 5 days, so it doesn't really seem like a big deal. But for me, that's pretty damn good, especially compared to the last few months.

On the down side of that, while my current weight is X-4 (it dropped during February despite my laxity - I was probably still semi-conscious of it), it hasn't changed by an ounce since March 1st. Which is disheartening, I don't expect to drop pounds every day, but it's just frustrating to see zero progress with all of my hard work. Again, I know it's only been 5 days. It just feels like longer.

Anyway, my goal is to keep tracking my intake for all of March. I might do little changes as far as activity goes (like taking the stairs more, walking Duke more, etc) but that's not my focus for this month.

On April 1st though my plan is to add regular exercise into the mix. Again, I'm going slow with this, and I'm debating giving myself a non-tracking day (1x/week, 1x/2 weeks, or 1x/month??? not sure yet) but I'm thinking in April I will start focusing more on the activity side of things. I also think it might be easier to do it then, hopefully the weather will be nicer and more enticing by that point.

Well I think that's enough about me. Time to try to refocus on this current pharmacology lecture (actually fairly entertaining this time).

Come on spring

2015-02-26T15:44:00.000-06:00

I'm not going to lie, Spring Semester of 2nd year of vet school absolutely sucks.

It's funny, because it's a combination of things that is making it tricky. Overall I really like some of the classes and find them really interesting (especially surgery). But I'm currently taking 30 credits. THIRTY CREDITS! That's without taking any electives... To top that off, in the classes this semester I have so many homework assignments, online quizzes, tutorials, and other random things to do that I've already forgotten to do some, despite actually making a MS Word calendar and checking it practically hourly to make sure I don't forget anything.

A problem I'm about to face is the fact that they gave us 2 weeks off without an exam. To be fair there were still homeworks and online quizzes etc to do and there's always class to attend, but no exams to cram for. This put me into a state of zero-f**ks-given and my motivation has never been lower. This is also partially senioritis (though I'm only in 2nd year) and the desire to just be done with classes. This will be a problem for me because in the upcoming 2 weeks (checking my calendar here) I have 7 exams, 2 homework assignments due, and 6 quizzes.

I may die.

I'm also not doing as well this semester as I should be. My grades are not living up to the standards I hold myself to, but again I can't seem to find the motivation to care enough to work on it.

Prime example: I am sitting in a lecture RIGHT NOW, and instead of paying attention I am typing this up.

I'm tired of the cold weather too. It's hit the 30's a couple times in the past month and both times I took Duke for a bike ride - it was great! But anything below that and I'm just cold and miserable, and while I take him to the dog park nearly every day to play some fetch on the frozen pond, I can't wait for winter to be over.

I applied for a few internships for the summer (okay 7) and so far have heard back from 3. Tufts essentially waitlisted me (boo) but both CSU and U of I-Chicago both want to interview me! That is very exciting because those are my top 2 choices (I would love to spend 10 weeks of my summer hanging out with Jackie :D). So we'll see how that goes, hopefully I get one!

Being VP of RAM Club (research animal medicine) is probably one of my biggest highlights of my life right now. If I could devote all of my time just working on that stuff I probably would. Alex S and I make a great P/VP team, and I'm not going to lie, I'm actually kind of glad that she took over the presidency. As much as I love what I get to do, she has to deal with all of the coordination/administrativey crap. I mostly just get to do the fun stuff.

Hah, midway through typing this I thought of more stuff to do for RAM Club and then spent the last hour doing that (again, not paying attention to pharmacology, le sigh).
But I did make this cool logo:

Definitely a good use of my time.

I should just go home.

Externship at Mizzou

2015-01-09T23:35:00.000-06:00

Well since I had to keep a journal for my externship at the U of Missouri, I decided to just copy and paste it in here for an update. Enjoy!

Day 1 (12/16/14):

Arrived too early

Talked to Craig - went over program, exciting

Talked to Shelly, got administrative things done

Talked to Aaron Ericsson? about potential research projects (mouse poo ie microbiome or zebrafish behavior)

Met Marcia - offered to drive me to ACUC annual review

Went to ACUC annual review - disagreements, scientist vs vet, very entertaining

Met other externs at OAR, went to VA imaging - like a sales pitch to do a PhD in his lab, very excited about his stuff

Long day, excited for the rest

Contacted Sarah Hooper and Cat Hagan about setting up time - may do some bat bleeding

Day 2 (12/17/14)

Morning watched 2 current resident presentations on mouse strains - some info I knew, some I didn't (liked the history of Jackson Lab), asked a question about audiogenic seizures and cochlear degeneration, then had to leave early

Did the Repro lab - Loved it - but wish there had enough mice for us each to do our own. was a little frustrating when Ava claimed she did the right testicle but actually did the left. Would also have been cool to actually insert the pipet into the infundibulum. The whole concept and procedures were really interesting

Afternoon meeting was cancelled (they were busy ranking candidates for the residency program next year, hope Mitch gets it)

Spent the rest of the afternoon shadowing Dan and picking his brain about his path to residency (since he's a MN grad like me). Got to see a bunch of adorable dachsund puppies and a muscular dystrophy dog (Captain) and help with blood draw/radiographs. Also got to see a bat room and a cat room (gave Clavamox to post-spay cats).

More talking with the current residents (super helpful).

Day 3 (12/18/14)

Early morning at the swine center. Shower in facility - that was new! Had a long productive morning shadowing Megan and Mike Linville. He was very informative, giving me the tour and the history of the facilities.

Went to the OAR holiday party - lots of good food and company. Got the chance to talk with more of the vets and residents and watch a fun game being played.

Following the party went to a live internet cast of primate rounds from Tulane. Heard about some really interesting cases of granulomatous inflammation in some macaques.

From there I went to shadowing Jake in the last of the animal facilities where I got to play with dachshund puppies, help restrain one for an ear cleaning and cytology, and looked at some fighting mouse wounds including a mouse who had lost his entire penis and had a random hole in his abdomen that he peed through. Super weird/gross. Ended the day looking at the slide from the dog ear and possibly seeing some yeast.

Day 4 (12/19/14)

Later morning thank goodness. Started with OAR rounds, basically updates from all the different factions. Pretty interesting, and since I'd already toured all 3 vet cares I actually knew about all of the cases they talked about, which was fun.

Talked with Lon and Pat about ACQA and got quizzed on OLAW, USDA, AWA, and The Guide. Also learned more about the structure of Mizzou's animal stuff.

Met with Dr. Bryda about my research project. Unfortunately not what I was hoping for - more PCR and benchtop than anything with animals. Still should be a good learning experience. Set up training stuff for Monday.

Joined the other externs for a mouse necropsy/parasitology lab. Using pet mice - found tapeworms, pinworms, mites, and all sorts of protozoa. So gross! Never getting pet mice from a store again. Very cool and interesting though.

Weekend activities:

Dog park, hiking, Hobbit with first year residents Dan, Jake, and Megan

Day 5 (12/22/14):

Morning came to learn PCR with Miriam (but she'd already finished) so then went over and watched Dr. Men do zygote injections. Very cool and finicky - he thinks its tedious

Came back to the lab and saw the PCR didn't work. Set up a new one myself with Miriam's guidance using the Accuprime kit.

Had a window of time so went over to ARC to help Sarah Hooper with bat stuff! Helped take pictures under UV light and then rehydrating (SQ injections of LRS) and feeding (mealworms!) the bats. Very cool.

Back to run gel on my PCR to see if it worked. Started doing the TA cloning on the sample, plated the bacteria for overnight.

Day 6 (12/23/14):

Morning was going to help out with bat stuff again but because of their late night they didn't get started until late.

Spent the morning reading background information about my research project (CRISPR in rats) as well as one of my books about veterinary surgery. Also emailed the rest of the people I hadn't gotten ahold of yet and scheduled up almost all of the rest of my activities.

In the afternoon I continued working with Anagha on my research project. Unfortunately the previous day's work didn't turn out, so we repeated the TA cloning with positive and negative controls as well as taking into account information from Invitrogen. Plated the bacteria again and hopefully there will be some growth tomorrow.

Day 7 (12/24/14):

Update with my research project and we had colony growth! Waiting to set up the next part until next week (since we are both off tomorrow and I'm off on Friday). Spent the rest of the morning updating my PowerPoint presentation and doing more background reading into the CRISPR technology.

Did send out a text to the remaining first year residents but unfortunately they didn't have much going on either.

Weekend activities:

Drove back up to Minnesota for Christmas with the family

Day 8 (12/29/14):

Long weekend but back in the saddle. Started the morning working on PowerPoint, then got an update from Anagha about the project. She ran through the next steps of the project and the timeline and we worked out a plan.

Then had a slide review with Dr. Marcia Hart. Very interesting and informative! Saw a few interesting cases and got to review some histology. See notes in notebook for more info.

Rat and mouse handling lab with Megan. Very fun, though not enough mice/rats for us each to have our own. Megan managed to blind stick a rat vena cava and impress us all, no one else could hit it. Fun and informative.

Day 9 (12/30/14):

Woke up feeling like I had swallowed a bag of gravel and broken glass, which were currently occupying space in my joints and no sleep. Elected to not bring my illness into surgical suites (daschund spay/neuters were on the schedule) and attempted to aid my immune system with extra sleep.

Came in the afternoon and had an extended vivarium tour at Discovery Ridge with Jason Huntsperger. A lot of good information about facility management and design. Went well over the scheduled time, but very interesting.

Was going to then go to learn about rodent colonoscopy with Sarah Hansen but she had been in other rodent facilities that day so we had to reschedule for Friday. Finishing the day with some more research into my research project.

Day 10 (12/31/14):

Watched Megan do a mass removal on a MN mini pig - really black mass!

Then followed Sarah Hansen over to check up on the puppies that were sterilized yesterday, they were all doing well. Soaked another dog's sore foot and also ran a fecal float on the other puppies in the litter (the ones that didn't get surgery had loose stool). Didn't see anything on the fecal.

Got a protocol from Pat Farrar to review and set up a meeting time to go over that with her.

Also set up a more concrete plan to meet with Sarah Hansen on Friday for the rodent colonoscopy.

Got an update from Anagha about my project - basically on hiatus until Monday since we're at a good stopping point and she's taking some days off.

Day 11 (1/1/15):

Helped Megan do her daily checks - first the pig with the mass removal and then the puppies that were recently sterilized.

Spent the rest of the day out and about Columbia, reading over the animal protocol from Pat Farrar, and working on my project.

Day 12 (1/2/15):

Started the day working with Sarah Hansen all morning. First I helped her get things ready and watched her do 3 rat colonoscopies. After that I helped with the necropsies and tissue sample collections along with Nick Harrison.

We got pizza and then headed over to OAR.

From there, Liz, Dan, Nick, and I went to Middlebush Farm and accompanied Lon Dixon and posse on the ACUC inspection. Finding expired needles was pretty much the only thing of note (and then the discussion about how and why things like needles expire).

That pretty much summed up the day. Busy last week coming up but excited as well.

Weekend Activities:

Drove over to St. Louis for the day - visited the zoo and the Arch.

On Sunday went to the dog park and ran into Sarah Hansen with her dog and daughter.
Day 13 (1/5/15):

Starting my last week fairly slowly. Slow morning, then had to decide whether to hit up the 2nd year Lab Animal Medicine class or stick around with the other externs and go to a class for the residents on infectious diseases. Decided to stay here, they talked me into it by reminding me that day 1 they would probably be going over the syllabus for the class, which isn't something I really need to know.

Class is interesting, talking about disease outbreaks and how to handle them. Given a case to look at and questions to address. Talked about approved vendors, how to address the issue with PI's, talking about budget concerns, risks for exceptions, disease transmission, etc. Basically ended with "do some research and come back on Wednesday with ideas." Interesting class, will get more out of it on Wednesday I think.

I then went to the Pathology PBL class and realized there wasn't much point to being there - all the presentations will be happening next week after I'm gone, but it was nice to meet some new people.

After that I had a meeting with Anagha to discuss my research project and presentation. She helped me flesh out the presentation a bit more with some more background info on the specific goals of the lab and we discussed future plans for my mini project.

Spent the rest of the afternoon working on my presentation.

Day 14 (1/6/15):

This morning I started off talking to Dana Weir about facility management. It was a really interesting discussion and not something I had given a lot of thought about until recently. We ended up going more over the Disease Outbreak PBL that had been discussed with the first year residents yesterday.

Then went to the ACUC meeting, not quite as hot button as the last one but still really interesting and fun to watch.

From there I spent the rest of the day with Beth Ahner and James Cook's lab watching orthopedic surgeries on dogs. It was really interesting - especially seeing all t he power tools and hammer and chisel in use, not to mention seeing Dr. Cook make a new meniscus out of pig skin. Very cool stuff, but really long day.

Also got some feedback from Dr. Bryda about my presentation. Will have to find some time somehow to talk with Anagha again. Scheduling this last week has been crazy!

Day 15 (1/7/15)

Crazy busy day. Started at Disco with Dalila and learning about her role in colony management at the MMRC. Showed me how to do health checks, wean mice, ear tag, and take tail snips. For all my mouse background, I was pretty slow at it! Took a bit longer than expected but still really fun/interesting.

Then went over to the OAR and was hoping to go over my protocol review with Pat but she wasn't around. Then went to the lab animal lecture that Jake gave about rat biology. Made me miss my old pet rats! Was fun hanging out with Megan, Mike, Sarah, and Dan.

Then went out to lunch with them at Panda Express - not terribly vet related but I enjoyed the company. There's never a good chicken to rice ratio with the food there I find... always too much rice left over.

From there I met up with the other externs at OAR and we walked over to LIDR together for a talk about that facility from Travis. Very interesting, and a bit odd to me about the security. You can find tularemia in wild animals, but if a mouse with it goes missing the FBI gets called in. They also keep mosquitoes there, so learning about their husbandry was grossly fascinating.

We then headed back to the trailer and waited just a little while for a tour from Craig. Went all over the MU campus and a bit through Columbia. Very interesting and informative - two of the other externs came a long and it was funny how little one knew about the town she'd been living in for the past 2 1/2 years. That was really fun and basically ended the day.

Except I got some feedback from Dr Bryda about my presentation so will likely spend the rest of the evening working on that - then an early day tomorrow!

Day 16 (1/8/15):

Early day starting with the pig orthopedic surgeries. Mostly an observatory role - interesting at first seeing the blood draw from the jugular and watching them put the pig down. Shaving and scrubbing. Then in the surgical suite we were basically kicked out, so that was less interesting. Apparently they had a problem with hypertension? The other externs and I were called upon to calcluate a CRI fluid rate for Dobutamine. Nick was called away to help Sarah and Liz and Ava were stuck with the calculations. They got Mike Fink to help out and eventually had it figured out. I headed out early to hit up the 2nd year Lab Animal Medicine class again.

Managed to find the room and sat in on Marcia's lecture about hamsters and gerbils. Unsurprisingly, a lot of histo pictures :)

Spent my lunch hour working on my presentation (only got so far last night before I lost steam).

Did a PCR lab with Dr. Bryda and Miriam. Pretty basic stuff, and mostly had already gone over it with them for my project, but still good to get another run through and practice stuff.

Following that I polished up my presentation a bit and then had a meeting with Dr. Bryda. We talked for over an hour about the presentation, how to format it better and add/adjust things, and future directions etc. After that I went back to my cubicle and spent another 3 hours making her suggested changes. Practiced it a couple of times and called it a night.

Day 17 (1/9/15) Last day :(

Started the morning off with OAR rounds. Pretty entertaining, similar to the first time. Got to hear more about the mouse with the mysterious hole (apparently not so mysterious a problem) and updates about puppies.

Then went to path rounds and questioned everything I ever thought I knew about gram stains. I swear it was purple for positive and pink for negative... but what do I know. Pretty interesting looking at the septic hedgehog organs - the heart I thought was especially cool, though the others were also interesting.

Then it was game time, had to give my presentation. It did not go as smoothly as when I'd practiced, I got a bit flustered and mixed up and I'm pretty sure I just confused most of the people (and the people who actually knew what I was supposed to be talking about had to correct me on some stuff). But hey, it's done, and that's what happens when you have a very limited time to try to learn a whole new topic.

Ava and I then went to grab some food, well coffee for her and Chipotle for me. Delicious.

Spent some time going over emails and then had my final meeting with Craig. Kind of sad, but good to recap the program and go through pros and cons. Then I went around and found people to say goodbye to (Sarah Hansen and Nick, Ava, Marcia, couldn't find Liz).

Then back here at Megan's, packing up and wondering how 4 weeks went by so quickly - I'm not ready to go back to the cold of Minnesota!

And in real time...

2014-10-06T23:37:00.000-05:00

While I'm slowly updating posts from well over a year ago, I'll give a quickie that's more in real time.

Life is hard.

New job (okay I started in May so not that new but whatever) working at an emergency veterinary clinic. My job mostly entails answering the phone, checking in clients, making them sign paperwork, and begging for money at the end. Basically all of the things I want to avoid about vet med by going into lab animal. So that's fun...

Went on an epic road trip this summer (did I already write about this?? I don't even know) with Megan and Sara. Drove from Rochester to Lincoln, NE to Glenwood Springs, CO to Las Vegas, NV to San Diego, CA to Flagstaff, AZ to Georgetown, CO and back home. It was amazing, rafting in Colorado, drinking in Vegas, going to the zoo and whale watching in San Diego, and seeing the amazing Grand Canyon. Plus lots of driving. It was super fun.

In August I got a dog!

Yep, his name is Duke of Weselton, he's a black lab-shepherd mix, and he's insane. We just graduated basic obedience last week, and he has more energy than Nathan's dog Jackie and Belle combined, which is saying something.

So that's pretty special.

Year two of vet school is well under way and I'm struggling to keep my head above water, or care enough to keep swimming. It's been rough, we'll see how this year goes.

I managed to set myself up with an internship at the University of Missouri over winter break, so that should be fun. Also been doing a lot of work as the VP of the Research Animal Medicine Club - booking lunchtime speakers and tours and food and things.

Busy life man. And here I am, procrastinating.

Italy Part 1: Rome

2014-10-06T21:38:00.003-05:00

July 17:
Stupid early morning. We brought our bags down the night before so just hauling the little stuff down in the morning. Shuttle/taxi got there around 5 minutes late - we were the first stop. Picked up 1 dude then went to pick up 2 more but they weren't ready (Meg got a snippy reply when she went to see). Thanks to them, got to Orly at 5:40am, then had to find our gate. Shuttled to the plane and then fly to Rome. Waited for the bags and then decided to take a shuttle bus to Termini station (5 euro each). Arrived, super short walk to the hostel and they let us up the elevator and into our room! Took a 2-3 hour nap (necessary!) and then dressed for church-friendly and headed to the restaurant suggested by our hostess for some delicious sparkling wine and pasta. Then off to Termini and the metro line A to Spagna (Spanish Steps) for a tour at 5:30. We arrived stupid early again and now waiting (bought postcards 20 for 1 euro and a fan for 2 euros). Very hot. Finally found the tour - she had a mic and speaker! Went to Spanish square (steps were French!), 2 old columns with Mary and Saint Paul on top, 2 churches, the Pantheon - largest dome, and the Trevi Fountain. Lots of Pagan turned Christian stuff! Good tour. Walked back down a street full of vendors and artists and watched a woman use spray paint and stencils to create beauty for 10 euros. Finally decided to get one - gave her creative freedom and it paid off big time - gorgeous. Creepy towel man outside but shower then bed.

July 18:
Alarm off at 8am so we'd be ready for our breakfast set up in the kitchen at 8:30 - cereal, hot chocolate, croissant (filled), yogurt, etc. Dressed and out the door (after herding cats mom & Megan) around 9:30. Walked to the Colosseum (my map skills) and then trying to find where to meet our tour guide (at reserved tickets). Had a short tour (with our own handheld speakers!) and then wandered some more and through the Constantine exhibit. Headed over to Palatino/Roman Forum and had to walk/wander a long way to find the entrance due to some construction. Wandered around the area but very hot, very little shade/breeze, and barely any information on what we were looking at. Finally walked home for a lovely 3 hour nap. Got up and headed out to the Hard Rock Cafe for food. Had to wait awhile for a table but not as long as predicted. Claudio took our order then switched to Elena. I had half a BBQ bacon cheeseburger and Meg & mom split twisted mac and a smaller burger. Headed home and stopped at outdoor market - found out we should buy leather in Florence. Also stopped at a supermarket and got chicken, chips, and cookies to make a lunch. Showered, read, talked to Brian for awhile about pride, Megan got snuggly, and finally sleep ~2am.

July 19:
8am wake up, breakfast, & out the door by 9am. Brief "argument" about bus vs. metro, got on the metro to "Ottaviano." Then walking a ways to Museo Vaticano and being worried about being late and in the wrong place (again!). Got to skip a huge queue and got our tickets at the meeting point. Our tour guide "Margarita"? gave us speakers/headphones. Tour of the Vatican Gardens. Very quiet and peaceful and lots of shade plus history of the Vatican. Then walked through the museum (da Vinci, Raphael, Dali) to the Sistine Chapel. I thought the ceiling in the church on our free tour was more impressive! We took the wrong exit out of the Sistine Chapel so had to backtrack to get to the right one. Then found a nice little souvenir shop run by nuns and I got a pin. Sat outside on a bench and ate our packed sandwiches, chips, and cookies. Debated going up the Dome - 7 euros and 300 steps or 5 euros and 500 steps, decided not to. Then into St. Peter's Basilica, touched the worn feet, wandered around. Finally home through the square and back on the metro. Read, took a nap, now mom and Megan are shopping. Yay alone time, but I miss Nathan. They brought back pizza and wine from the same restaurant as before, then bedtime.

July 20:
Got to "sleep in"! Alarm @ 8:30, out of bed ~9am for breakfast. Dawdled a bit and headed out ~11am (in & out to potty!). Then decided to do a trip advisor walking tour of baths/temples, etc. Saw the circus, some old bridges over the Tiber (62 BC!) and the Marcello Teatro (like a smaller Colosseum). Also saw a face from the 1st century - w/ "Mouth of Truth." Then decided to walk/shop for shoes up towards the Spanish steps and then over to Barberini. Then walked home from there - tried to stop in a McD's for a toilet but a long unmoving line. Finally back to our usual restaurant for pizza and bruschetta (free!). Meg and I walked down to the laundromat to check it out and on the way stopped in a lingerie shop. Cheap stuff - awkward though! Laundromat was too pricey - will try in Florence. Now home - after trying to find mom to let us in. Short nap break. Got up and mom and Megan went to try to find a WWII free museum (was closed unfortunately) while I Skyped with Nathan and took a shower. They got back and mom and I went to the train station to get my Euro pass stamped - waited in the wrong line then got to the right line and ran home for my passport. Then got it stamped, stopped at McD's for Coke and shakes (1 euro) then home.

Rome Summary:
Nice place, fountains everywhere - overwhelming amount of super old (BC) structures. Not as big as I was expecting - fairly walkable. Metro not great and I was afraid of using buses - couldn't buy tickets on the bus. Super hot until the thunderstorm then better so long as you stay out of the sun. The Colosseum was impressive, the Roman Forum not so much (probably because no info/tour). The Vatican was both over and underwhelming. Too many people! Very glad for online ticket purchases. Calm in the garden but then super crowded in the museum/Sistine Chapel. Sistine was less impressive than a church on our free tour. Never found good shoes for Megan. Hopefully in Florence we can find good leather products. Food was good but really only ate at one restaurant besides the Hard Rock Cafe. No cannolis yet. Hostel has been great - WiFi, clean, old locks/keys, Don't feel like I missed anything.
"Ancient City"
3.5 out of 5 stars

Paris Part 2

2014-05-19T20:53:00.001-05:00

July 15, 2013:
Back to the hostel and met up with the family and made a plan for the day. We walked up and down a boulevard (can't read the name of it in my handwriting) (full of tourist shops and sex shops). Then stopped outside the Moulin Rouge for a tour (DiscoverWalks with Lulu). Fun Montmartre tour (artists etc). Ended at the Sacre Coeur - hot! Wandered around and dipped our feet (walked into) a wonderful ice cold fountain. Then to Abbessess road (nun) and a small bakery where we picked up baguettes with fromage (cheese), an eclair for Megan, and chocolate tarts for mom and I. We hopped on the metro for a quick toilet/wine pick up from the hostel and then to a nearby park. We sat on a bench, ate food, enjoyed the sights (pigeons trying to mate and a couple of people making out hardcore). Also, when resting before the tour we saw a drag queen walk by. Now, probably going to head home soon. I headed home and left Megan and mom in the park - showered and got sheets for our new room in 502 - so many stairs! Mom and Megan got back and we all napped for a couple of hours. Then dressed and off on the metro (after horrible WiFi time) to the Hard Rock Cafe. Got a pin, a table at the bar, chicken tenders, and soda. Hung out for awhile - met some Canadians who had a cousin try out for the Wild, then off to the metro and home and bed. Read more Dragonswings and missed Nathan...

July 16:
Early morning - alarm started at 8am but I didn't get up until 8:45. Slow start, but got on the metro (after our last breakfast) and to the Arc de Triomphe by 10am. Of course then we didn't even go up it... waste of an early morning! Walked down the Champs Elysees and stopped at the McDonald's - got some tasty macaroons and used the restroom. Before then we stopped at a street artist and got a painting - I talked the guy down from 35 to 10 euros! Then kept walking - went into some shops and the Disney store. Long walk toward the Notre Dame - stopped for some leftover baguettes and to enjoy the Seine. Got to the Notre Dame - huge line. Asked for info and the tour meets at the big horse statue. So here we wait until 2:30pm. Finally had the tour - great info. Some outside and then cut the queue and inside galore - the south rose window has been restored more and is thicker because of the Seine than the north rose (which has 75% of its original material). Good tour, then back to the hostel for naps. Now trying to get packed up for a super early day tomorrow. After packing we headed out to walk back up to the Sacre Coeur - 233 steps (mom counted). Few more tourist shops - I got a Chat Noir print. Picked up a hot dog and "croque mon sieur" and walked home for bed - not much since alarms were set for 3:45am.

Paris Summary:
Here for a long time and definitely didn't need more. The hostel was easily the worst so far - the staff was hot and cold. The WiFi was always awful, the lounge wasn't very comfortable, and way too many stairs! Breakfast was okay - good hot chocolate. For the city - had a mix of experiences. Some very nice people (helped unstick my bag) and some less so. Good bakery smells to awful urine/poo smells. Playgrounds by the Seine, Louvre was way too big to see in one go but didn't want to go more. Eiffel Tower was great and going early was the best idea. The fireworks on Bastille Day were amazing - I think worth the 3 hour wait. The metro was pretty easy to use and stations everywhere. Still a lot of walking! Had good luck with the food (crepes!). Not very handicap accessible.
"City of Stairs"
3 out of 5 stars

Paris Part 1

2014-04-26T21:55:00.002-05:00

I'm going to update the rest of this so it is immortalized on the internet, but obviously I'm no longer in Europe. So the rest of it will not be italicized, but still straight from my journal :)

July 11, 2013:
Train to Paris through the Chunnel (got a blurry pic going in). Off at Gare du Nord then onto the metro - and I got stuck in the turnstyle! Tried to call for help - no luck. Some nice guy gave us his ticket then helped shove Nathan's bag over. Got to the hostel then up to 4th floor room 407. Now relaxing after a shower. Hanging in hostel lobby - not super useful host, terrible WiFi - tried to call mom but crappy. After awhile we headed up the hill and a ton of stairs to the Sacre Coeur. Took pictures, tons of market-type stuff around and hawkers, great views of Paris. Stopped for a nice meal at Le Deli. 18.5 euros each for appetizer, entree, and dessert. I had ravioli, salmon, and chocolate cake and it was delicious! Nathan's was not as great. We then walked around, took more pictures, then headed home and to bed.

July 12:
We elected to sleep in this morning but were rudely awoken by cleaners knocking, We indicated the room was occupied but that just inspired them to take out their keys and try to get in! That wasn't fun, but they finally gave up. Got up, packed, and headed down to check out (~11:30am). Set up our luggage in the luggage room and went to the metro to figure out day passes. Was pretty easy - then walked around and finally got back to the hostel to wait for mom and Megan. They arrived! Got dad's phone, put their bags in the room (after they changed), then wandered around Montmartre for a bit. Bought some stuff for lunch at the supermarket, then got a bit turned around heading home. Finally made it, checked in, and mom and Megan took a nap while I set up dad's phone. Then we all headed over to the Lourve. Megan, Nathan, and I got in for free and it was 12 euros for mom. Saw the Venus de Milo, Mona Lisa, and tons of other famous art work. Finally headed out to the Palais Royal, walked through the mediocre garden (where is all the grass?) and then went on a food hunt. Eventually stopped at Le Royal Cafe - another "formulae" meal: ravioli and delicious chocolate mousse. Drank tons of water - very thirsty and footsore. Met some Minnesota girls and got our pictures taken. Finally a long walk back to the metro and home. Crappy WiFi, but bedtime anyway.

July 13:
Early morning (8am) - a good breakfast with hot chocolate and croissants. Then out to the opera to the Discover Walks tour. 2 French women "Louise and Lauren", lesser known landmarks, 1 hour 30 minute tour. Ended at the obelisk. Not as good as Sandemann's. Tried to find the Batobus stop - wandered around 1 km in the wrong direction, but we figured it out and headed back (played some games along the water while we wandered). Got on and found seats and busted out the lunch we packed (sandwiches and chips). Enjoying the ride and the views. We got off at the Eiffel tower and were disappointed at the huge lines. Bought some ice cream and back on the Batobus (after Megan got some mini towers) to the Notre Dame. Wandered over a bridge covered in locks and walked over to the Cathedral and another huge line! Back on the Batobus (and some napping) then off to the Champs Elysees stop and a long walk to the Arc de Triomphe. Passed a lot of fancy shops and a McDonald's. Then (couldn't get near the Arc) a very long walk back to the Eiffel Tower. Got some food (a cheesy hot dog and coke) and then checked out the still super long lines, but now the top level was closed. We all decided to try for early tomorrow morning or Monday. Now back on the Batobus to the Orsay to jump on the metro home. Unfortunately there wasn't actually a metro stop there so we had to go find one. Got home, jumped on WiFi and realized there was a "block party" by the firemen for Bastille Day tonight 1 km away from 9pm to 4am. So we changed and limped over. Donations in a barrel and entertainment cheesing up singing Elvis and Tina Turner etc. Finally our feet hurt too much and we headed home and bedtime.

July 14 (Bastille Day):
Very early morning - up at 7am! Shower, breakfast, and out the door by 8am. On the metro, 2 transfers (the #6 train was aboveground!) to Bir Hakeim. Short walk to the Eiffel Tower - arrived around 8:45am. Bit of a line already, got in and got tickets and up to the top! Everyone (but me) surprised at the height. Bit crowded but got pics of major landmarks like the Arc in the morning haze. Back down to 2nd floor for more pics then saw a mini air show! Tons of military jets with the first ones trailing red, white, and blue smoke. Nathan had fun, but then we finally headed down to the ground and went and got delicious Nutella filled crepes! Watched them make it - Nathan got strawberries in his and Megan and I were just Nutella. Delicious. Now back on the Batobus - helicopter fleet went by and just now more jets trailing colored smoke. Rode to the St. Germaine stop and walked over to the Ponts des Arts (the real lock bridge). Then saw a sign for St. Germaine Church and headed there - but we got the wrong church! Still was pretty inside. Then we hit up some tourist shops and Nathan and I headed back while the other two continued shopping. Had some ticket issues on the metro but eventually got home. Hung out downstairs and used WiFi and ate leftover cheese and breakfast breads. Megan and mom got back and we all went up for a nap (though I read for a bit first). Got ready and went on a walk looking for a park - found a sandwichery but kept walking. Went to a bar by the hostel for happy hour drinks - tequila sunrises and Nathan's lime thing, I could barely drink mine. I ran back to get my phone and then we tried (and failed) to find the sandwich place again. Jumped on the metro to the Eiffel Tower for fireworks. Got a decent spot on some stairs. Nathan and I went off for food first and got some iffy sandwiches, now Megan and mom are food-hunting. Awesome fireworks and music, Megan and Nathan got us home on the 12, overall great late night.

July 15:
Okay so we got up around 9am and got dressed (Nathan showered). Went down for a quick breakfast then back up to pack up. Nathan grabbed his bag and then we all went to the post office for stamps. Then Nathan and I jumped on the metro to Gare du Nord (while Megan and mom went exploring). Said goodbye as Nathan went on to the airport and I back to the hostel.

Going to cut this off here as this is where my traveling companion roster loses its first member (and I'm getting a little tired of typing/reading my tiny handwriting). Will return to finish Paris (and the rest of the trip) eventually!

I know its been awhile, but I need to vent

2014-04-03T13:29:00.003-05:00

This is going to be a long angry post, but please bear with me.

As many of you know, I have been in the process of applying for an Army scholarship, the HPSP. If I got it my tuition would be covered for the next three years in exchange for service after graduation. I started working with the recruiters in May, filling out the immense application, submitting all the necessary paperwork, going in multiple times to talk to them and make sure I submitted everything. And I did. Unfortunately I was too honest, fessing up to my childhood "asthma", requiring my medical records from childhood to be sent. Due to a miscommunication, my old clinic sent them every single medical record instead of just the ones pertaining to the "asthma", meaning the army had to go through a hundred pages of medical records instead of the usual 10-20. It shouldn't have been a problem, since they had all of these records by October, but someone somewhere screwed me over. Basically, a different department reviews the medical records and then clears you for a physical. The physical results become part of your application (along with the 60 pages of application, motivation essay, copies of identification, transcripts, letters of recommendation, etc). My application has been done (with some minor essay revisions because I wrote too much for the form) since early March. I was waiting to be cleared for a physical. More people started applying for this same scholarship in February, and were also waiting on a physical. The deadline approaching, I started calling my recruiters almost daily worrying about getting the physical in on time. They told me that there was nothing to do but wait for MEPS to clear me and they would ask for an exemption waiver to try to buy some time.

Well folks, I got the call today, and the exemption did not go through. After a year of work and effort I'm getting rejected from this scholarship not based on anything to do with me, not because I failed to submit information on my end, but because the system failed to get their shit done on time. I did everything right, and I'm getting screwed, and getting screwed out of tens of thousands of dollars. I might not have gotten the scholarship, it is competitive, but I won't even get a chance now due to sheer bureaucracy and incompetence.

London Part 2

2013-08-01T13:01:00.001-05:00

I'm sitting in the gorgeous hostel courtyard in Vienna and realized I should keep updating. So here's the rest of London ! (Man I've fallen behind, been in Europe for 4 weeks today!)

July 10:
Long day! Got up early (8am) showered and ate breakfast (opted out of the omelette), talked to Lyle again, then headed out to Hyde Park and Wellington Arch for the free tour with Steph. She totally stole the Eddie Izzard bit about flags! Good tour - saw Big Ben (Elizabeth II clocktower), Buckingham palace, Trafalgar square, Downing Street, the old MI6 headquarters, Westminster Abbey, and a lot more. After we went to Old Monk Pub for more fish and chips and Nathan had chili. Meh but only 6 euro each so... we got interrogated by a Wisconsin man asking Nathan about Polaris, was awkward. His daughter was studying in Germany. We then ran (3pm) to the London Eye, waited in line to pick up our river cruise and Eye tickets. Then ran to the pier to get in line again to get on the boat. Got inside and sat next to the window. There was an audio tour through the speakers but people/kids were being so loud and rowdy it was very hard to hear. Saw Big Ben, Shakespeare Globe, London school, Tower, Millennium Bridge, London bridge, St Paul's cathedral, and more from the Thames. After the cruise we waited in line for the London Eye - got in car #12 (2 cars away from the orange car #10). Amazing views- super high. Then went home for a bit and tried to pack. Off again to the HRC (near Hyde Park, had to wander a bit to find it), then to Piccadilly circus, then back to Westminster for night pictures of the London Eye and Big Ben. Finally home again, wrote postcards and now bedtime.

Holy crud. I started typing this up almost a week ago! I'm in Berlin now enjoying my "day off." Going to finish up this dang London post if it kills me!

July 11:
Early morning again. Packed up and stripped beds and hauled everything downstairs. Put the bags in a storage area and headed up to Camden Town to check out the markets. Picked up a small photo for my Euro art collection and wandered around more. Headed back and stopped at the post office to send some postcards. Walked back to the hostel, now just hanging out until we leave for St Pancras station and Paris! Took the bus to Pimlico then the tube to Kings Cross/St Pancras station. Should have stopped by Kings Cross to satisfy the screaming Harry Potter fan inside me but basically rushed through security and passport control to the platform. Nathan is off to spend our coinage on food.

I'm going to end July 11 here because after this point we're in Paris.

London summary:
This city felt overwhelming - too much to do and not enough time. The tower of London was exhausting and the weather went from HOT to chilly in our 4 days here. Was sunny though. Met some rude people - worker at McDs, people shoving, etc. Hostel was more early-to-bed early to rise than Amsterdam. Better public transit, but that might just be because we used it. Lots of history here and free museums (that we didn't go to!). Nathan: "big city, lots to do, but nothing too exciting. Except for the theatre." Shows are here in full for sure - Wicked for 25# was great. The hostel was nice - big lounge, fancy breakfast, free drinks, cheap WiFi but it was up 2 flights, the lockers didn't lock, and the lobby closed at midnight. Also had the impression that we were bothering the staff. Cars parked on the street faced any direction. Less bikes but still around. Confusing ordering food in pubs. Pay to use toilets - but not in restaurants at least! London Eye was good, river cruise meh.
"City of No Time"
3 out of 5 stars

London Part 1

2013-07-24T10:55:00.001-05:00

Sitting at the train station in Venice waiting for mom and Megan to arrive, since I read during the train ride I figured I could start typing up London for the 15 minute wait for them to get here.

July 8:
Got up early (7am) and finished packing, then off to the bus stop. Jumped on 197 and had a long ride to Schiphol. Traversed the airport, checked our bags, then off to the gate. Now on the bumpy delayed plane about to take off. London here we come! Gatwick airport - tix to Gatwick express train to London. 20 pounds each - pricey! Got to the train station and got some "King Tango" (like Fanta) and a sausage roll (not bad). Got on the train. Now off to London for reals. Arrived, waited in line to buy an Oyster card at Victoria station and ended up buying day passes instead. Rode to Pimlico, walked to our hostel and up 2 flights to our room (#8). Got settled in, changed to shorts and a tank top (hot!) and headed out to try to find a place to fix my phone and explore. Took double decker bus #24 to Victoria again and found the Apollo Victoria Theatre playing Wicked. Checked out the box office and Nathan bought two tickets for tonight! 25 pounds each, not bad. No luck on the phone - they don't make this model in the UK :-(. Hopped on the underground and got off at Westminster for exploring! Big Ben, London Eye, parliament, and hot dogs and roasted peanuts for sale on the bridge. Finally grabbed pasties and headed home to shower, change, and back to Victoria for the show! Great show - could really hear the accents! Weird thing was the crowd - people in tank tops and ripped jean shorts eating chips and popcorn, more like a movie theater! Bought a poster there - hopefully we can keep it nice. Hanging out at the hostel bar now - looking up phone info and skyping with the fam. Hopefully its not too hot to sleep!

As an aside, melting here in Venice (at the hostel now), I didn't know what hot was yet in London :-p

July 9:
Writing on the tube. Woken early by Aussies having a chat in the room at full volume around 7am - no respect! Got ready late and barely made breakfast at 10:30. Too late for the free tour so we took our time and then headed to the Tower of London (bus 24 to Victoria then train to Tower Hill). Huge place! Latched on to part of a tour, saw exhibits on the mint and torture, and inside the white tower was a big exhibit on weapons and the armory. Also waited in a long but quick line to see the crown jewels. A lot of gold, etc but almost just looks like costume jewellery. Grabbed some ice cream and a pin of the white tower, then went to a ticket shop to see if they had Book of Mormon fix - no luck. Now have to rest, relax, hopefully grab some fish & chips for dinner, and maybe see some sites at night. Took a long nap then up and out walking looking for food. Finally decided on Prince of Wales - took us awhile to figure out that we had to order food at the bar. We got bangers and mash (but they ran out of mash so subbed chips, and the sausage was gross) and fish and chips which were greasy and delicious. Caught the 24 bus home then hung out and in the room and chatted with Lyle from Louisiana (34, in the army, bearded). Now hanging out in the hostel bar trying to figure out how to do the rest of London in a day and a half. Looks like an early to bed night, shower, and breakfast tomorrow. (The hot chocolate here was not good).

Amsterdam Part 2

2013-07-24T05:42:00.001-05:00

Going to change up the style here and make the journal entry in italics. Hope that doesn't confuse y'all.

July 6:
Overslept and missed breakfast :-( Got up and walked over to the Rijksmuseum - passed a fashion week display. Tons of paintings, sculptures, Van Gogh, Hague students, etc. Bit overwhelming! Then to the supermarket for bread, turkey, cheese, and stroopwaffels - caramel waffle cookies. Back to the hostel where we cooked the bread and toasted sandwiches with soda and Doritos. Quick break in the room then off past Rembrandtplein (street artists!) and to a market. Bought a pin, but they were all closing up shop at 5pm. Wandered back to R.plein and bought some postcards on the way. Now off to buy a some street art (I decided that my souvenirs for myself this trip, other than pins, would be art created by locals if at all possible.) Went to Amstel dam square for our red light district tour - chose to go with the rated R tour guide "Lee" with bright red dyed hair. Pretty entertaining and more info about the district - project 1012 making it more family friendly, different streets have different types of women, tried men in windows but it worked too well, etc. Stopped for a 2 euro peep show (on the tour!) Followed the guide to Durty Nelly's Irish Pub. Sat and made friends there for awhile. Nathan had some tasty Somersby cider. Met some nice Canadians and a few Irish as well. Then they went to Casa Rosso sex show and we walked home - stopping for Frozz frozen yogurt and fries with cheese and forks and a brief chat/eating on a bench. We are going to try to go to the beach tomorrow! Public transit is tricky though...

July 7:
Had a rough nights sleep - woken by roommates' lights and snoring, ugh. Up around 9, ate breakfast and packed up for the beach! Walked to Centraal station, bought tickets from a person after a machine demanded a PIN. After a little confusion we jumped on the train to Zandvoort an Zee. Nathan took a nap on the train - I enjoyed the scenery. Got here and followed the long train of people headed to the beach. Convinced Nathan to come down onto the sand and found an orange rock for Vicki. Now to relax, eat our picnic lunch, and maybe go out in the water. Went for a walk up and down the beach. Saw quite a few topless ladies (young and old). Headed back and slept on the train ride home. Kept looking for a free toilet but no luck, eventually paid 0.50 euro at KFC. Back to hostel around 4pm. Ate stroopwaffels - YUM! We must buy more... went to Albert Heijn supermarket and they were out! Went to Anne Frank house - no pics allowed but very interesting/depressing. Headed toward the Dam square and stopped at another AH supermarket and looked for stroopwaffels - too many options and none looked right! Sent Nathan in to look while I sat out front and updated my journal. Mailed a couple postcards. Next to find a Febo (vending machine fast food place) and another delicious hot dog from that street vendor near the HRC. We did except hot dog man was gone :-( so we got more fries instead. Walked back, packed, showered, and then my phone was knocked down and the screen completely broke! Hope to repair in London...

Amsterdam summary:
Overall I really enjoyed this city. Weather was nice, all walkable, traffic with bikes, transit, cars, and peds was terrifying. Everyone was pretty nice and it was easy to get by with no Dutch. Our hostel was a bit far from the main part of town - next time stay more downtown. Red light district seemed tame - saw more flesh at the beach! Paying to use toilets was a pain, soda was pricey in restaurants, and paying for ketchup sucked. The meat I'm burgers and hot dogs seemed tastier - more spices? Probably spent too much $ but will try to keep a better eye on it. Tours (Sandemanns) were great, boat cruise was meh. Museum was way too big and overwhelming. Anne Frank house was depressing and moving but I don't think it would have been worth a 2 hour wait in line - unless you'd recently read the book. The airport is huge and well signed. Public transit probably wasn't as confusing as we thought but we just rarely used it. Zandvoort was a great beach but not much else around, other than restaurants. Overall, a great town with lots to see and do!
Four stars out of five

Okay so that wraps up Amsterdam, right on the day I leave Florence. Not sure how much I'll be able to do in my future travels but one city out of 10 is a good start! I'm three weeks into my trip today and about to go to my 6th city out of ten. Halfway done! Mom and Megan leave from Venice on Saturday, then I meet up with Amanda in Vienna.

Amsterdam Part 1

2013-07-22T15:27:00.001-05:00

We'll see how much I actually post sitting in my bed in Florence but I've decided to at least attempt updating about my grand European adventure. We'll start with Amsterdam, taken directly from my handwritten journal:

July 3-4:
Left work around 3:15 and met Nathan at the light rail. Rode it down to MSP. Long flight to Reykjavik (6 hours) but we got "upgraded" to the exit row. Couldn't keep the bags under the seat I'm front and couldn't recline so not sure if it's really an upgrade... my window seat was VERY cold! I watched Argo and tried to sleep. Short layover at KEF - Iceland is weird! No trees at all, just rocks, grasses, and lichens. Our flight to Amsterdam was delayed - waiting for a late plane from JFK. Arrived in Amsterdam (2.5 hour flight), got our bags, and went to find the bus. After some confusion we got our tickets and on the bus. Got off at "Museumplein" and then a 600m walk to The Flying Pig Uptown hostel. Briefly "lost" our bags (someone kindly hauled them up to our floor) then got settled in (top bunk!). I showered then cleaned and Nathan napped and showered. Here the pen color changed as I indicated I stopped writing in order to take a short nap. After our nap we went on a wandering walk through Amsterdam. We first looked for an ATM and then just headed toward the city. Walked past the Hard Rock Cafe (HRC) and then stopped for some food at "Pancake Corner." Had giant pancakes topped with ice cream. Also some yellow "orange" Fanta. It was okay. Kept walking and exploring and finally found an ATM for Nathan. Finally turned and headed back - never really got lost. Another nap, a short walk, and then back to the hostel bar for WiFi, pizza, and Coke (& vodka for Nathan). Made semi plans for the next day then off to bed (after reading Chris Kluwe's book for a bit).

July 5:
Got up at 9am, got dressed, and went down for free breakfast. Chocolate flake cereal, toast with peanut butter, and a not great undercooked hardboiled egg. Back to the room for a bit then down again for the free city tour at 10:30. Again I took a break here and picked up after the tour. We really just got hauled to the dam square for the Sandemann's tour at 11:15. The tour was great. Nathan is telling me to write that I'm eating old BK fries. Tour: guide was Kate, walked thru the red light district and the old church. Scantily clad ladies in the window. Church and district had good business sense - could pre pay for sins. Passed coffee shops and Chinatown, the highest point in Amsterdam (3m above sea level), the porch weigh station, cannabis museum, break for lunch at meeting point on Amstel dam/Royal palace/white monument (we ate at BK and got charged 0.50 euro for ketchup!). Also went outside the cheese shop - 2 year old cheese and I won distribution duty/leftovers. Ended outside the Anne Frank house and the tallest church. Nathan and I went to Paradox coffee shop and had cake and Coke with two people from the tour (Leon and Winni from Perth). Took a walk through Vondelpark (right next to hostel). Ponds and lots of people. Took a 2 hour nap then went on the river cruise canal tour - audio guides, narrow turns, tight bridges, house boats, and (no offense Amsterdamers) nasty Heineken beers. After we split the tastiest hot dog and stopped at the HRC for a pin. We then walked to the red light district which was packed full of people. A long walk back, had to stop at McDonalds for a toilet. Footsore and tired muscles mean shower and bed.

Okay this task is very daunting. So I'm going to stop here and pick up again later.

Rainy Day in May

2013-05-08T23:41:00.002-05:00

Well it hasn't quite been a month, so I'll call this a win!

I have become a lazy slob. No, seriously, I've barely been biking at all (other than to/from work) since two weekends ago. On that weekend I biked a lot - to work (2.3 miles), to a potential place to live next year (2.4 miles), back home (4.4 miles). Then I biked from my house to Nathan's (12.3 miles HOWEVER I got lost and went an extra 2.2 miles). That was all just on Friday (total = 23.6 miles)! Then on Saturday Nathan and I biked back to my place (another 12.3 miles, no getting lost this time!). On Sunday I biked from Nathan's to Anoka where my mom and sister were having a spaghetti feed fundraiser (for the 3-day walk for breast cancer) - that was 15.9 miles. So for that one weekend I biked 51.8 miles, and that felt like a lot. Over three days. I haven't done nearly that much since then, and in exactly a month I will be biking three times that much over 2 days. I am so screwed! I did order bike shorts - that were "delivered" but I never received so now I'm dealing with USPS to get that sorted out. I also took Addy on a bike ride - that was fun for me but not so much for her! I think I'm going to try to get her used to it, it was fun!

Finding a place to live has also been vexing. I'm pretty committed to one girl to room with, but she has a 75# dog that is making it difficult to find a place. At least for only 2 people, and it has been incredibly difficult convincing a third person to join us. We've had 2 people turn us down and 1 just completely ignore our request. Disheartening to say the least, especially because I found a seemingly perfect place (that I biked to) that has 3 BR. It's $1250/mo, which is good for 3 people but a bit steep for 2.

Europe has been fun, but challenging. There is just so much to plan! And I'm definitely not one to just get there and "wing it." I did that on the cruise with Nathan for the most part and that meant that most of the stops were spent wandering aimlessly. I don't plan on making that mistake again, but it does mean a lot of research to do. So far I have hostels and travel booked for Amsterdam, London, Paris, Rome, Florence, Venice, and Vienna. Still have to get things setup for Prague, Berlin, and Copenhagen. I did book my flight home though, so I will be back in the States on August 16, just in time for my sister's bachelorette party on the 17th (that's been another mess in itself, but not really worth mentioning). Haven't booked any tours or attractions or planned anything in detail yet though, that's still on the to do list.

Work has also been fun, but challenging. I've been writing a protocol paper on a protocol I've never done before, so that was interesting. In more of the fun category, I've finally started working with mice again! Yep, less than 2 months left and I finally start a mouse project. Working with the mouse people at the U has been a challenge - getting card access to all the restricted areas a hassle, not to mention all the quarantine rules, but it brings back good memories of working at the VA. Just the good ones, because no one was ever being mean when the mice were out.

My classes have been proceeding along. I am so excited to be done with Chemistry - easily the worst class I've taken since graduating. Each test is 20 multiple choice questions, generally ones that require a lot of equation making and solving long problems with multiple steps, with easy places to mess up. And of course the answers you get if you mess up a single step are all potential choices - and no partial credit. So if I solve the entire problem but forget to subtract at the end (say I solved for the amount of gas released and the question asks for the amount of gas left) I get it wrong and lose the same amount of points as someone who just completely guesses. It's completely disheartening, and I almost always run out of time on these tests - usually I'm a fast test-taker. Right now I'm averaging a B in the class, but the final is worth about a third of my grade and of course it's cumulative. Ugh. On the other end of the spectrum, Physics has been a breeze. I don't know why, but physics just makes perfect sense. All you have to do is find the right equations and input the numbers and bam, answer. It's probably all the algebra. Anyway, my physics final is on Saturday and my chemistry final is on Tuesday. So one week from today I'll be done with classes until vet school! That's pretty exciting.

I think the weather has finally started to normalize. We haven't had snow in over a week! At least here, but down in Rochester they had a ridiculous amount of snow last week (well over a foot). Mom's car got stuck in the driveway - and this was in May. It's raining tonight, but rain is acceptable to me. Just no more snow. It was supposed to be thunderstorming, but I haven't heard any yet.

Here's hoping I don't fail my finals, can find a place to live next year, and get everything figured out before I leave the country!

April? Are you sure?

2013-04-16T16:25:00.002-05:00

I mean, if there's still snow on the ground it can't have been that long since my last post in January, right?

WRONG! It's freaking mid-April and there's snow on the ground and snow in the forecast for tomorrow! I can't handle this endless winter, it's got me so far down in the dumps.

So, lots and lots to catch up on. I'll try to just hit the highlights:

Vet school:

I'm in! I was accepted at the U of MN for the class of 2017.

This was after the interview I had January 24th - my mom came up and we spent the day together. The interview day was horribly timed, info session at 8am, then nothing for hours, then tour+lunch at noon, my interview was at 1:15 (had to choke down my food after the tour), and there was a final tour at 3:45 but we elected to skip it. The interview went pretty well (obviously, since I got in). One of the interviewers was a Gustavus grad who worked in research, so that was helpful - had a few talking points with him. Found out about my acceptance on February 15th - they called and emailed me.

As far as the other two schools, Oregon has me on an alternate list (like a waitlist, but unranked) and UW-Madison put me at #45 on their waitlist. Made the choice pretty easy for me - and I think my friends in the area and Nathan especially were grateful for that decision.

Told my boss about my acceptance, and she was thrilled for me. I had been dreading telling her (basically handing in my resignation) but all that stress about it was pointless! Of course now I'm super busy at work since we're trying to tie up my project before I go, but it's still a good feeling knowing your boss cares more about your future and your life than just thinking selfishly about how it would affect their lab.

Of course I still have pre-reqs I need to complete in order to attend next fall - Chemistry II w/lab and Physics II w/lab. I'm in both courses right now (8 credits) and I have no idea how I'm finding the time to do all of the homework, study for the tests, do the labs and the lab work, along with everything else. The chemistry lab is easily the worst part of the whole thing - I'm partnered with two freshmen (18!!) and I feel like I'm babysitting every lab session. Only about a month left though, just have to stick it out.

I'm also trying to figure out my living situation for next year - looking for a cheap apartment/house to rent that allows dogs (for my future roommate and possibly my future dog) near the St. Paul campus. So that's fun.

Europe:

I'm going! I set up a route, have found traveling companions, and started booking tickets and hostels, so it's really happening. Right now the plan is Amsterdam-London-Paris with Nathan (meeting Sarah in London and my mom and sister in Paris), then Paris-Rome-Florence-Venice with Megan and mom, Vienna-Prague with my former coworker Amanda, and finally Berlin-Copenhagen with my friend Michael. It's going to be an epic trip - from July 3 - mid-August. Trying to plan that has been a huge ordeal, but it's just on my list of things to get done!

Health:

Well this one has fallen by the wayside a bit. However, Nathan and I (foolishly?) signed up to participate in the MS150 bike ride from Duluth to the Twin Cities. That is happening the second weekend in June and we may very well die. Been trying to start training but it has been extremely difficult with this ridiculous weather we've been having. Of course that's no excuse to not get to the gym, but it's much easier to convince myself to bike outside when it's nice out than to convince myself to go to the gym at any time. I also need to fundraise for it - not the crazy amount that my mom and sister (Sara) have to for the 3 day walk for breast cancer, but hey if you reading this want to donate $5 feel free to go here and do it! It's for a good cause.

Other news:

Amanda is engaged - getting married on my birthday.

Sisters have been having trouble organizing a good date for Megan's bachelorette party.

Had an Italian exchange student (Fabio) work in our lab for a month - very nice and friendly, had a crazy landlady.

Katie did not get into her Masters of Nursing program - very sad. Decided to instead try for an Associates in Nursing.

Brian (Nathan's brother) may be moving to the cities after getting a job at Polaris.

Nathan decided to stop fostering for BCRMN after Ocean (Dutch Shepherd) was adopted (not because of her, just so he can put more time and energy into Jackie, who needs it).

Mom and I made some pretty mosaic pieces at a woman's house in St. Paul - mom a light yellow/green themed mirror and myself a peacock.

Mom and dad were thinking of buying a house near St. Paul campus for me and Sara to live in, that idea fizzled out.

I decided to stop working at Como Zoo - I was having trouble finishing all of my homework and stuff on the weekends when I'd have it. Just needed that extra time.

I think that's the majority of the highlights. There are probably some major things I'm missing but it's good enough for now!

In conclusion, STOP SNOWING MINNESOTA, IT'S TIME FOR SPRING!

Welcome 2013!

2013-01-07T23:49:00.002-06:00

Well, bad me. I was on a roll back in November and then I apparently forgot I had a blog and just didn't do anything.

Quick recap of the rest of 2012:

Thanksgiving I spent at Nathan's in North Dakota. We ate food, hung out, vegged, played Cards Against Humanity, etc and so on. We took my car because Nathan's heat didn't work and I wasn't about to drive 4.5 hours each way freezing my butt off!

Mid December I was busy cramming for my finals. Microbiology wasn't so bad - it wasn't cumulative just the last of 4 exams. I did have to finish our "Skim vs. Whole Milk" project (more bacteria in skim, who'd have thought?) and give a presentation on it, but it wasn't bad. Plus we got to use a notecard for the exam. Case in point, aced that class. Physiology was another can of worms entirely. 50% of my grade for the class depended on that last test, which was 2/3 new material and 1/3 review of the entire semester. Not to mention the fact that the questions were terrifyingly specific details - no overarching themes or general topics. I pretty much bombed it, at least by my standards. I got a 76% on the final exam - but here's the good news. Apparently everyone did poorly because with the curve, my 76% translated into an A-, bringing my final overall grade to an A. I feel like I dodged a bullet, but that class was terrifyingly intense.

Also in December my grandma down in Florida had been stuck in the hospital for weeks and my parents decided to fly down to see what the situation was. Well it wasn't good, so my mom took charge, packed them up, and flew them up to Minnesota. I met them at the airport and helped keep company and load things into the car. They drove back down to Rochester and got grandma settled in at the Charter house and my grandpa took over my childhood bedroom.

The week before Christmas Nathan went back to ND to celebrate with his family - but I didn't trust his car to make it there and back (it had been to the mechanic and needed thousand dollar repairs made). So I did the crazy thing and offered to trade cars with him for a few days. Driving his car just through the neighborhood or the few blocks to the post office was a terrifying experience. When he finally got back the weekend before Christmas he came to my apartment to swap back and his car died for real. There was no saving it. Luckily his insurance covered a tow so he got it back to his garage. That weekend he and I celebrated a mini Christmas. He got me a board game (Mice & Mystics), a wonderful new office chair (it's seriously awesome), and the third QC book (he's gotten me the 1st two previously).

On Christmas Eve we drove down to Mankato and celebrated Christmas with the Koenigs/Kehoe clan. We had done a "draw a name" gift exchange this year with the caveat that the gift had to be homemade. Well Nathan, myself, and a few other people took this to heart but the rest of them threw in gift cards and other store bought items! Even my mom, who's the craftiest of us all! We ate appetizers all day, played with the puppies (Ben's beagle puppy Penny and Travis' chocolate lab Bauer plus the two shih tzus), played pool, and just hung out until it was time to drive back to Rochester. Drove back, parents picked up grandpa, and we headed out to late mass at Holy Spirit. We arrived far earlier than we needed to (apparently the 9pm Christmas Eve mass isn't nearly as crowded as the 4:30 or the 7), so my sisters and I took the boys on a tour of our elementary school. My 8th grade class picture is still hanging up in the hallway outside the library, oh the good old days! After mass we went home, put on PJ's, and of course watched White Christmas.

Christmas morning dawned and we all hung around and ate some of mom's humongous breakfast - waffles, eggs, quiche, bacon, ham, hashbrowns, cinnamon rolls, the list goes on. Finally we got to pick up grandma and then the real fun began! PRESENTS! I won't go into the details with the list (how selfish am I?) but the major things were a bike rack for my car, a video camera, a hand made apron, and a few other awesome things. Hung out the rest of the day, ate breakfast all day, we were going to go see a movie (Les Mis) but everyone wussed out on me when they discovered how long it was. At one point my uncle Jeff and aunt Gail showed up from Des Moines as a surprise for my grandparents, so that was nice. We also played Wii Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune - that was pretty fun

The day after Christmas (mom's birthday), Nathan and I went and looked at new cars for him in Rochester. We checked out a Honda Fit and a Toyota Fiesta. While the name, color, price, and overall look of the Fiesta were more my style, the interior of the Fit won Nathan over. We didn't test drive any of them there and he didn't buy anything but it was a good learning experience. After that we headed to Culver's (had a nice little chat with Steve - owner) and had lunch with Hannah. Got caught up on a lot of stuff and she got to meet Nathan so that was fun. After that we went back to the parent's house, hung out for a bit, and eventually headed back up to the cities. Had to drop off Addy first and and then drove over to Chanhassen Dinner Theater to meet up with Nathan's parents and see Bye Bye Birdie. The show was pretty fun, the food was good, and it was a decent night.

Back to work on Thursday and Friday - although the lab was like a ghost town. I basically just did what I needed to do and then went back home. On Thursday Nathan and I went to a Honda dealer and he test drove a Fit - he liked it but the dealership wasn't nearly as friendly as the one in Rochester. That weekend I drove back down to Rochester for the Coughlin family Christmas. I spent most of Friday night hanging out with Jackie which was exceptionally nice. Saturday was the big event, house jam packed full of people. It was nice seeing the whole family together. We ate Mr. Pizza, did the gag gifts (I got a very nice light up Santa picture - I gave outhouse salt and pepper shakers), the boys played poker, and we all played the Wii. On Sunday I went and saw Skyfall with Jackie and then drove back home to the cities.

New Year's Eve day I went in to work, but that night Nathan and I drove down in his new Fit (he bought one over the weekend) to Kyle's house. We hung out with a bunch of people (some drunk and annoying, others sober and annoying) and ate Buca di Peppo's and other appetizers, played Cards Against Humanity and WiiU games, and watched the ball drop. Not the best night ever, but it was nice to get out a be a bit more social.

New Year's Day I went in to work again, along with the rest of the week. Was rough getting back into the swing of things, but I did receive some excellent news! I heard back from Oregon State (I'm still under consideration) and the U of MN (they want to interview me)! So that was exciting. I also acquired a spare cat. Sybylla's neighborhood cat dubbed "Thomas O'Malley" - super friendly, was pretty much abandoned when his rightful owner moved out. He seemed to be in rough shape so we flea collared him for a few days and then captured him and moved him in with me. Addy's not thrilled about it but she seems to be getting used to the idea. He's very nice and friendly and ignores her hissing and growling. I managed to get the rescue Secondhand Hounds (where I got Addy) to host him while I foster him, so hopefully he'll get fixed soon and then adopted. He's super sweet but I don't really have the room for two kitties. I'll attach a picture of him to the end of this, tell your friends! (see here)

Here's what I'm hopeful for 2013:

1. To be at a healthier weight than I've been in recent memory
2. To travel across Europe this summer on the road trip of a lifetime
3. To begin veterinary school and the start of the rest of my life

Lofty aspirations, but we'll see how it goes!

Mawwage

2012-11-17T20:18:00.001-06:00

Weddings, engagements, marriage.

I've been watching a lot of The Tudors - which is all about King Henry VIII who had 6 wives and how he acquired (and disposed of) those wives. One of my favorite characters is the Lady Mary - Henry's eldest daughter by his first wife Catherine of Aragon (who later becomes Bloody Mary). In the latest episode I watched, she quarrels with the current queen Catherine Howard, who claims that Mary is jealous of her because Mary is older than she is but is still unmarried. This leaves Mary distraught and she lashes out at the queen and later cries with great sorrow for her fate. And seriously, it's so sad that the grand life goals of the women in this time was to marry well. So that's all about marriage.

Last night I watched a Twilight marathon - the first four movies alone in my apartment. Was up stupid late finishing them but it was kind of fun. Then today I went to see the latest movie, Breaking Dawn Pt 2 in the theater (again alone because everyone had either already seen it, lived too far away, or just refused to go with me). Anyway, those movies all lead up to the whole idea of a soul mate, someone to spend eternity with, etc and so on.

Then finally, tonight after I got home from the movie I received a phone call from my sister, informing me of her engagement. It wasn't a surprise, they'd been ring shopping and venue hunting etc for the past few weeks, but still. It's happening.

That's really all.

I'm Gonna Wreck It!

2012-11-05T23:29:00.000-06:00

I went and saw Wreck-It Ralph tonight and it was really fun! It was funny, and touching, and an overall good movie. Well done Disney!

I'm also updating so I can beat my record low posts of 17 last year. That's right, I only posted 17 updates in 2011! That's pretty sad, and with this post I'm up to 18 for 2012.

Another reason for this update is to avoid studying. I have a couple of tests coming up, in Physiology and Microbiology, and I just don't want to study for them. I'm not too worried about Microbiology - it's one of 4 tests plus we have tons of quizzes and homework projects to boost our grades and I did really well on the first two tests. It's really Physiology I should be stressing about.

Here's the problem with Physiology: I don't go to class. I know I should, but ever since I realized that he posts all the notes online and doesn't stray from that information for the tests (as evidenced by my first test - aced it) I've decided that sleeping in over that hour is far preferable to sitting in a boring classroom. The notion would be that I would just teach myself the material from the notes as we go and show up and ace the tests. But that's what the entire grade is based on - 3 tests. Two of them (100 points each) are during the semester and the cumulative final (200 points) at the end. I did well on my first test but the next one is coming up a week from today and I haven't gone over the material at all. So while all my peers in the class are studying over the material I'll just be learning it for the first time. Awful, I know, but it's pretty much what I did for the first test and I got a 94. Just to throw that into perspective, the class average was 72. Sigh. Darn you procrastination!

Speaking of which, I still haven't even finished my stats! I was supposed to finish it before my Micro and Physio classes started and when I lost most of my work due to a technological issue I just haven't felt like doing it.

Watching "Switched at Birth" and drinking hot Tang - I am just so lazy!

Went home this weekend (and took Addy with me). Friday night went out to Applebee's with Megan and her friend Emily K. Stayed up late watching movies/TV and then got up early on Saturday to go to the free Cinemagic kid's movie with Megan (Happy Feet 2 - pretty good!). Out to eat at Beetle's (delicious but took forever) then back home for more TV and laziness. Sunday followed the trend - although Megan and I went and got our hair cut. Mine actually got chopped - 8 braided inches donated to Locks of Love. Was hard to pull the trigger (wanted to wait until summer) but Megan convinced me to.

Lame and horribly written paragraph about my weekend, but meh.

Go see the movie! Good stuff.

Happy Halloween!

2012-11-01T00:25:00.003-05:00

Yep, totally suck. Didn't post a thing all September or October.

I'm starting to realize that my lack of posting generally happens when I have real stuff to talk about. Not sure if that's ironic or just sad because it's when I'm bored that all my avid readers (heh, right) get the play by play of every day.

Enough of that.

So I went on a cruise at the beginning of September. It was awesome - went to San Juan, St. Thomas, Barbados, St. Lucia, St. Kitts, and St. Maarten. We snorkeled with sea turtles, took ferries, saw dozens of jewelry stores (because that's what you do!), bought souvenirs, hung out on the beach and the decks, ate tons of delicious cruise food, went ziplining over the rainforest, and hauled our bags around San Juan at the very end. It was a great trip, and I came home to find that Vicki had filled my closet with balloons (floor to ceiling, some of them are still around) and wrapped 24 random objects around my apartment (some still wrapped).

Early October Nathan, Chris, and I went to see Louis CK live - for Chris' birthday. He was hilarious live, highly recommend seeing him. And yes, I realize I skipped the rest of September, but I think I spent most of my time finishing my vet school applications and sorting all of that out.

On Sara's birthday (19th), Nathan, Kory, Adam, Megan, Sara, I, and a couple other people went out to Buca di Beppo's for Sara's 21st birthday. Great food, great company, and afterwards they went over to a bar. If there hadn't been a cover I would have gone in with them but I'm cheap so instead I went home.

The next day I got up and decided to make beignets! The French donuts from The Princess and the Frog! My boss had gone to New Orleans and brought back boxes of the mix for us to try to make. So I did! They were delicious fresh, not so great the next day. I brought them over to Sybylla's and shared them with her, her mom, Monkey, and Vicki. We spent the afternoon/evening watching movies, carving pumpkins, and playing games. It turns out we carved them too soon because after a bit less than a week mine grew some gnarly mold/fungus. Looked really cool but wasn't very sanitary so I had to chuck it.

No worries though because last night (Tuesday) I went over to Nathan's and he, Chris, and I all carved new pumpkins! Mine wasn't quite as good as the first one I carved, but still good. Especially since near the end of mine the carving knives broke - poor Nathan only got to do a tiny part before they were broken.

This past weekend I got to go to the dog park twice! The first time on Saturday with Nathan and Jackie (dog) and the second time on Sunday just me and Jackie. After the second trip I brought Jackie back to my apartment to hang out until Nathan picked her up, and I was expecting her to annoy Addy the whole time or for Addy to hide in my room. Complete opposite reaction - Jackie spent the whole time sniffing around or watching Evaine (the rat) or curled up sleeping while Addy proceeded to chase her around, attack her tail, and bat at her from behind/under things. It was adorable! I think Addy felt good about it because she was on her own turf - and it probably helped that Jackie was too distracted to get down to kitten chasing.

Tonight is Halloween! Unfortunately I didn't really get a chance to celebrate it. I worked and then had Microbiology lab. Came home and watched TV and made pumpkin bars (delicious).

I'm planning on going down to Rochester this weekend - maybe go see Happy Feet 2 on Saturday morning for the free kids movie at the theater (awesome).

August fun times

2012-08-07T21:05:00.003-05:00

So I started typing this up on August 7th and am just now finishing it up. I'm going to finish this post up to right before the cruise and hopefully write another one tonight but we'll see how it goes.

Last weekend I went camping with Vicki and Sybylla at Great River Bluff State Park near Winona. We drove down through Rochester and played "Cows Running" in the car. Basically it was a couple of super long lists of random things to find, and whoever found the most won. Sybylla and I were on a team against Vicki but she still managed to win by a landslide. We got to the campsite fairly late on Friday, started setting up the tent in the dark and soon realized that we were missing a piece of a pole. We decided to improvise with three sticks and a lot of duct tape and it worked!

At this point the rest of the weekend is mostly a blur - we ate a lot of pie ironed foods, along with a ton of delicious watermelon, went on some hikes and saw some pretty sites over the Mississippi river, and generally had a good time.

The following weekend I drove up to Heath's Resort (had to drive past Crow Wing State Park again!) with Kory to spend a long weekend with the Coughlin clan. Again, very foggy memories, but I had a really great time with my aunts, uncles, grandparents, and cousins! We played volleyball in the sand, ate delicious food, went fishing, tried tubing, swam in the lake, and all sorts of fun activities. I was sad to see it end but it reminded me how fun it was to hang out with my family.

Man this going back and trying to remember things is just reminding me how I need to be more consistent with my updating.

A couple weekends later I drove down to Rochester and spent Friday night shopping for clothes for my vacation. Sara and mom played dress up with me and I walked away with a bag full of clothes. On Saturday morning we drove over to Lanesboro where we met up with the Koenigs. Spent the day floating on tubes down the Root River and hanging out at their campsite. Another good family day.

The last week in August was a very busy week. I had my first Microbiology lab on Wednesday and it went terribly - it was stupid easy but the other people at our table were morons and had no idea how to work a microscope - and the professor did not help at all. Before I left for lab, mom stopped by to pick up Addy to watch her for the next week and a half while I was on vacation.

On Friday it was of course my birthday :P (I feel so old at 25!). Went to work but left a tad early. Walked from work to Sara's apartment where I met Nathan. We then walked to the bus pickup on our way to the State Fair! Once we got there we met up with Vicki and Sybylla and spent the rest of the afternoon/evening at the fair. Eating fried food (got a free deep fried candy bar from Sara), watching lumberjacks, and just having a good time with good friends :)

Saturday morning I volunteered at Como again and afterwards Megan, Sara, Kory, and Adam met me there and we went through the zoo (I had done a similar zoo trip with Sybylla and Vicki two weekends before... the last time I'd volunteered there). Afterwards we drove to Har Mar Mall (very slowly through all the State Fair traffic) and met up with Nathan at Old Chicago. Ate more good food, then went home and cleaned my apartment and packed.

Sunday morning Nathan and I got up at like 4am and walked our luggage to the light rail station. From there we went to the airport and started our vacation!

I probably won't manage to update the cruise stuff tonight, but hopefully I will before too long...

30 Chihuahuas!

2012-07-22T13:21:00.002-05:00

I'm running out of creativity for my post titles - so this is one is based on the Animal Hoarding episode currently playing. The guy has 30 chihuahuas, 1 cocker spaniel, and 1 shih tzu. There's poop everywhere and they never stop barking...

In other news, it's been a month since I last posted, which is bad on me. At some point it gets hard to bring yourself to catch up on all that's happened so it's just easier to not.

Alright so here goes nothing. The last weekend in June I helped move Megan back from Madison to Rochester. I drove down to Rochester and then dad and I drove to Madison. We stayed there Friday night and then loaded up the U Haul and headed out Saturday morning. We had to wait forever for her stupid subleaser to finally show up to get the keys and then I was tasked with driving Megan's car back to Rochester. About 5 minutes into the drive is when I discovered that the air conditioning wasn't working and it was in the 90's temperature wise. I couldn't even easily roll down the windows because they were all hand cranks! I eventually couldn't take it and left the slower vehicles behind and hauled ass to the KFC where we'd planned to have lunch. After lunch I switched vehicles and let Megan drive her own car. Got back to Rochester, unloaded, and hung out the rest of the night. Back to Minneapolis on Sunday.

The 4th of July was pretty laid back - for the most part I just went over to Nathan's where we grilled out and set off cheap small fireworks at the end of the driveway. The following Saturday was my first time volunteering at Como Zoo. I basically stood outside the ducks/flamingos and told people about them and answered questions. I think it went pretty well.

Thursday the 12th I came in to work early for a biometric screening - all my numbers look good and in the acceptable range (hooray). At lunch I went over to the VA and had cafeteria food with Joe. Got caught up on our news and had a nice lunch just like old times. Afterwards I went to Bldg 49 and met with Dave (the vet at the VA). We had a nice long chat and he agreed to write an evaluation for me - another hooray! The next weekend I drove down to Des Moines to meet my cousin's twin boys. Hung out at the aunt and uncle's, went fishing on the pond, ate good food, and had a nice time. On Sunday I met up with Hannah at the Des Moines Art Center. We chatted, got caught up with our lives and our goals, and questioned the artistic value of colored water in empty plastic pop bottles. That was really fun, and I miss having her around to hang out with.

This week I went to a Vet School Application Prep Seminar at the St. Paul Campus. It was incredibly helpful, but it meant I have a lot of editing to do on my application. I've been working on that for the most part. I went to see Dark Knight Rises on Friday night - it made me cry. Yesterday was another Como day - although a morning thunderstorm took out the power and caused me to wake up late. This weekend has been pretty lame - haven't done much other than stuff on Netflix and eat food.

I'm now on a new episode of Animal Hoarding and this woman has 84 cats and man is that place nasty...

I'm so full...

2012-06-20T23:37:00.004-05:00

Random title, I know, but I ate at Fat Lorenzo's with Vicki and Sybylla for supper today and it was sooo much food! My stomach isn't used to being stretched out so far in one sitting anymore.

Well we went camping (Nathan and I) at Crow Wing State Park. Got a late start but made it there with some daylight left. When we arrived and checked in we learned that, due to recent flooding and excess stagnant water, the mosquitoes had multiplied to threat level cloud. That's right, clouds of mosquitoes were everywhere, a thick fog of bloodsucking menaces. Got to the site, and (after applying as much DEET as we could get out of the cans) started attempting to assemble the giant 2 room tent. Unfortunately, the stakes were nowhere to be found, and the tent refused to go up without being staked down. So we got in the car and drove to the Walmart in Baxter and bought some fresh bug spray and some stakes. Back to the campsite and of course it's dark so we used the headlights from the car and got it set up. We may have made a fire, but I don't really remember.

On Saturday we slept in, then built up a fire. Breakfast/lunch (not brunch, we opted to rename it brench, for a more even distribution of the letters in each meal) was delicious cheesy hot dogs over the fire. We read for awhile (while digesting) and then attempted to go on a hike. We first headed down the steps to the Mississippi River, only to find the usual landing completely underwater. It was also extremely cloudy. As in, clouds of mosquitoes attacking our flesh. So we tried to hike down another trail but eventually gave up and headed back to camp. Unfortunately, with the lack of campfire smoke, the mosquitoes were intolerable at the campsite as well, so we jumped in the car and drove to the movie theater in Brainerd. I know, we were there for camping, but the bugs were just awful. The movie we decided to see wasn't playing for a few hours so we ended up taking an hour and a half hike on the Paul Bunyan State Trail (see - hiking!). We saw 7 garter snakes during our hike and I made us stop and take pictures of some of the pretty wildflowers growing alongside the trail. Got back and saw Prometheus - it wasn't great but it wasn't horrible either. Mostly it was just confusing, the plot went every which way and that made it hard to follow what was actually happening. Went back to the campsite and started up a fresh fire for pie iron pizzas (dinner!). Then just hung out, reading, stoking the fire, and eventually making smores until bedtime.

On Sunday we again slept in (I didn't think it was possible to do that while camping, but apparently my sleeping skills have grown tremendously) and had leftover hot dogs and pie iron pizzas for brench (that's right, I'm making it a thing). Read some more (good books!) and then made dessert pie irons (peanut butter, chocolate, and marshmallow for me, the same minus peanut butter plus graham cracker chunks for Nathan). Delicious. Eventually of course we had to pack up the camp and drive back to the cities.

The rest of this week has most just been long and painful. Mostly because last week was only a 3 day week for me with two vacations, and then a full week with not much to do at work. Enough of my whining. Monday was meeting at the Animal Humane Society and then dinner with Nathan (Bosco sticks!), Tuesday was strength training, Wednesday was WW (25lb total!) and dinner with Vicki and Sybylla at Fat Lorenzo's (so good). So I started this blog on Wednesday and am finishing it on Thursday (today). Nothing much happened today either, other than strength training again.

So in life news I've been working on my vet school applications. It's mostly through one common site (VMCAS) and it's pretty intense. It wants you to recall every activity you ever did from high school on, which is a bit difficult when it's been so long since high school (over 10 years since freshman year - I am so old...) So far I've managed to get two evaluators, but still need to get a couple more, plus at least one if not two vets. I'm planning to spend an afternoon with the vet from the VA and I'm hoping he'll be willing to write one for me. I'm also hoping that volunteering with Kindest Cut at the AHS (they spay/neuter animals at shelters) will put me in touch with another vet who may be willing to write one for me.

I think that's pretty much it for now, other than my statistics class is going well (working ahead a lot) and today I got an email from my physiology professor (taking it in the fall) who changed the textbook, meaning I had to resell the one I bought last month. On the plus side the new textbook is optional and I already managed to sell my old one for the same price I bought it for. Win?

June is escaping!

2012-06-14T22:01:00.003-05:00

Seriously, I can't believe it's already been almost 2 weeks since I took the GRE - it feels like it was just yesterday! Speaking of which, I finally got my official scores: 165 Verbal (96th percentile), 165 Math (93rd percentile), and 4.5 Writing (72nd percentile - ouch). So yay overall for that.

So on Friday night I drove Addy to Nathan's where I dropped her off (she stayed with his roommate Chris for the weekend) and picked up Nathan. We drove to Breezy Point Resort (with a stop at Taco Bell along the way - the Dorito taco is freaking delicious!) and met up with my parents.

I honestly don't think we did anything that night but I could be wrong - I just don't remember! On Saturday we tried to go tubing but it was really windy and the tube sucked. We spent hours reading - on the beach and on the porch of the condo. Dinner was burgers with the parents' friends and later that night we tried night fishing - the bobbers glow! But we didn't catch a thing.

On Sunday we had a big delicious breakfast and then hung out indoors a lot (it was rainy and windy out). Lunch was hot dogs and macaroni & cheese - delicious. Later, Nathan and I went to see Snow White & the Huntsman. All I can say is that it was pretty to watch, but oh my word the plot was terrible. I'm pretty lenient with judging movies and books but this one was just bad, it was a let down for sure.

Monday we went fishing and didn't catch much (some, but no walleyes yet). In the afternoon Nathan and I went to Pirate's Cove Adventure Golf. Nathan and his family used to go there when he was a kid so it was a fun nostalgia thing for him and a fun "I suck at mini golf" thing for me. On the way back we stopped in Nisswa and visited the Chocolate Ox (yummy candy store) and the Rainy Day Bookstore (this is the store that I preordered the sixth Harry Potter book from years ago and forced my family to drive me there that summer during our vacation and then of course read the entire book in a day). We ate dinner that night at The Commander - great food but the waitress was terrible - kept forgetting us and it took almost an hour to get our food.

Tuesday was the last day of vacation :( We went fishing in the afternoon and I caught 13 perch while dad only caught a couple and poor Nathan didn't catch any. We also played golf (the card game) and ate leftovers. Eventually we had to drive home.

Yesterday was WW and I was seriously considering not going - I hadn't tracked all weekend and ate tons of cookies and candy and chips etc. But I eventually decided I had to go, and I even made myself walk there. To my surprise I only gained 0.4 lb! So that was a relief.

Today was a super long day. I woke up and it was dark and scary looking outside so I made the weird decision to drive halfway and walk the rest into work. It's about a 20 minute walk plus the drive time makes it much longer than my usual bike in. Didn't get rained on too much on the way in, then had a semi-slow day at work, then worked on my statistics homework, then went to my weight training class. After that I was starving but still had to walk back! I didn't get home until 8:30 pm, only to discover that Addy had tried to pull the cat toy off the mirror and instead managed to pull the full length mirror off the wall, to shatter on the floor. UGH. So I cleaned that up, fed her, had dinner, finished my stats homework, and I still have to pack for camping tomorrow!

I'm so tired, I hope I manage to get it all done.

GRE complete!

2012-06-04T00:45:00.002-05:00

For the past few years, ever since I realized that I wouldn't be getting very far working in research with only a Bachelor's degree, I've had a "To Do" list. At the very top of this list was "take the GRE." Well ladies and gentlemen, I can finally cross that off my list.

That's right, I took the GRE on Saturday and, even though I stressed out before and during the test, I got it done and actually did very well. I scored a 165 in Verbal Reasoning (96th percentile) and 165 in Quantitative Reasoning (math - 93rd percentile). I'm bragging, I know, but I'm just so dang proud! I think buying the prep materials and actually taking a few practice tests really did help. I'm super excited to never have to take it again though.

So I dropped Addy off at Nathan's on Friday night and spent that night both semi relaxing (caught up on Game of Thrones) and semi studying (just going over the vocab flash cards). Then on Saturday I took the GRE (duh) and drove to Culver's to celebrate! After Culver's I drove down to Rochester, where my parents offered to pay for my test in return for some menial labor. I readily agreed; painting/staining the deck was a wonderfully mindless task after weeks of trying to stuff my brain full of math tricks and vocabulary. I finished up right as it was starting to get dark out and then joined my parents for some TV watching (Beauty and the Beast was on ABC Family - almost over but still!). Then mom went to bed and dad and I watched I Love You Man. It was a pretty slow movie, I wouldn't recommend it.

On Sunday my mom had to work and my dad went golfing so I was alone with Belle. We went for a decent walk to Petco and the dollar store and got sprinkled on by a bit of rain on the way back. Left my parents a Mother's/Father's Day gift, ate some leftovers, and headed back to the Cities. At home I watched some TV until Nathan got home and then headed over to pick up Addy. Nathan and I decided to go exploring so I went on another long walk - this time ending at Dairy Queen (chocolate dipped cone, yummy). With those two walks today I totaled about 5-6 miles, and all in terrible shoes for walking, which means I now have some nasty, huge, and painful blisters on my feet. Hopefully riding my bike won't upset them further.

So my busy-ness is continuing: I'm now free to start my Statistics class anytime (since I no longer have to be studying for the GRE), I'm starting a group strength training course this week (every Tuesday and Thursday evening for 8 weeks), I still have WW on Wednesday nights, and of course my vacations. This Friday Nathan and I are going Up North to Breezy Point with my parents from Friday night (or Saturday morning - haven't quite decided yet) until Tuesday afternoon. Then the following weekend we're going camping at Crow Wing State Park from Friday to Sunday and the weekend after that is my Como Zoo Volunteer training. I've probably mentioned all this before, but yea, my June is hectic.

But the GRE is done! One less thing to worry about.